But, supposing that matter is eternal, how does that account for the formation of this beautiful world? The earth consists not of one substance known by that name, but of a great variety of material substances as oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, sulphur, iron, and some fifty-two or three others already discovered (_see Turner's Chemistry, section_ 341). Now which of these is the eternal matter referred to? Is it iron, or sulphur, or carbon, or oxygen? If it is any one of them, where did the others come from? Did a mass of iron, for example, becoming discontented with its condition, suddenly change itself into a cloud of gas or a pail of water? Or are all the elements eternal? Have we fifty-eight eternal substances? Are they all eternal in their present combinations, or is it only the simple elements that are eternal? Whatever may be the answers to these questions, they give no light on the formation of this world, which is not a shapeless mass called matter, but a beautiful building composed of a variety of substances. Has this earth existed as it is from eternity? No man who ever was in a quarry or gravel pit will say so, much less one who has the least smattering of chemistry or geology. If the elements which {63} compose the earth have not always existed as we now find them, then how came they to put themselves in their present shapes? Matter has no power of putting itself in motion when at rest, nor of coming to rest when in motion. A body will never change its place unless moved, and if once started will move on forever unless stopped. For example, if we leave our room, and on our return find a book missing, we know that some one has taken it--the book could not have gone off at its own suggestion. Now will the infidels presume to tell us, that the fifty-eight primary elements danced about till the air, sea and earth somehow jumbled themselves together into the present shape of this glorious and beautiful world, with all its regularity of day and night, Summer and Winter, with all its beautiful flowers and lofty trees, with all its variety of birds, beasts and fishes, not to speak of the beauties of the morning, the gorgeous dyes of sunset, or the silent glories of the midnight sky. Or to bring the question down to the level of the intellect of the most stupid atheist, tell us in plain English, _did the paving stones make themselves_?